The BBC's Seven Ages Of Rock series is the most detestable programme on television. Its collection of earnest and aged talking heads make Newsnight Review look like Tiswas.
I particularly hate the monotone drone of received wisdom, the kind of off-the-peg laziness that asserts that the Stones' performance at Altamont heralded the end of the 60s? (Why did it? Because everyone says it did.) Why did last weekend's programme on stadium bands end with U2's 1996 Zooropa tour? Muse were headlining the first of two nights at Wembley Stadium the night the Saturday programme went to air. And why has Patti Smith been the only female artist so far to warrant serious mention, and then to make the point that the photograph on the cover of Horses has her looking "androgynous". In other words, Patti Smith could be a bloke.
Blokes, of course, is what this is about. After another stunning revelation comes yawning from the screen - David Bowie re-invented himself as Ziggy Stardust? No! Did he? - up pops Charles Shaar Murray to tell you what it all means. The fact that Murray could hardly appear any more pompous were he playing the role of God is only part of the problem. The real problem is that the Seven Ages Of Rock takes the visceral thrill of fabulous music and somehow makes it boring. In its place sit blokes with alphabetically categorized CD collections and faces like chamois leather.
You wouldn't guess it from watching this series but there is a generation of listeners out there for whom Green Day are more relevant than the Sex Pistols. There are listeners out there who rightly recognise that Little Richard yelping "a wop boppa loo bop a wop bam boo" makes just as much sense as Bob Dylan singing Masters Of War. And there are people out there who like music for no other reason than that they like it, who understand that the first response is instinctive, not intellectual.
If you're someone who likes to turn the music up, for God's sake turn this programme off.
